A Primitive Cane Crusher. 
139 
er, and soon gave way to other sounds which only too clearly indicated 
that the drink swallowed in superfluity had discovered an outlet. 
484. Caberalli informed ns that this was the usual method in similar 
cases. “If the drink at our feasts,” he told us, “commences to take ef- 
fect and give rise to quarrels, we try to get the angered parties close to 
the house, where they are unexpectedly seized, and sewn up so tightly 
in their hammocks, that no exertion, no struggling can free them. The 
continued swinging increases their giddiness and after a short while their 
passions die away in a deep sleep.” Truly an excellent method worthy 
of being copied in many a society in Europe. Though I had come across 
people as passionately fond of intoxicants as those at Cumaka, I had 
never yet seen any so overpowered and no longer master of their senses. 
485. The delight of our Indians was soon turned into extreme annoy- 
ance, on discovering their hopes of joining the feast shattered owing to 
the drink having been drained to the last drop, although the huge trough 
appeared to have contained at least 200 quarts. In front of the chief’s 
house lay an immense heap of pressed-out sugar-cane the juice of which 
had been used in its manufacture. 
480. In their talent for imitation, the Indians could only be beaten 
by few other peoples, the simple sugar-mill we saw here affording a 
fresh demonstration of it: it was decidedly a facsimile and fulfilled its 
purpose admirably. Two strong side-posts several feet apart were 
rammed tightly into the ground : between these posts were fixed two 
strong rounded tree-trunks that almost touched each other, and could be 
revolved by two winches with ease. When they want to squeeze out the 
juice, each two of four women take a winch and set the rollers in motion, 
while a fifth puts the cane-stump in the intervening space between, the 
expressed juice being caught in a vessel beneath.* 
487. Half an hour’s quiet had hardly been restored in the hammock 
when the yelling in it started afresh : the lightening of her stomach and 
the effects of our strange appearance may have moderated her intox- 
ication somewhat. The wide meshes of the hammock allowed of her sat- 
isfying her curiosity and I don’t know what sort of terrifying picture 
her drink-bedimmed fancy painted at sight of our white and black faces, 
but her yelling increased to such an extent thajt we begged the chief to 
spare our ears the awful treat and loose her from her bonds. Hardly was 
this done than she glared at us with eyes rolling in terror and, moving 
her whole body about in a ghastly fashion, pitched her voice to its utmost 
limits, ufftil she was finally dragged by three of her fellow- wives to a 
distant house, whence the raving clamour continued to reach us long- 
after. 
488. I was extremely surprised at finding several lemon and .orange 
trees which, together with Bixa Orellana Linn., and a number of Ana car- 
diuni occidental e Linn, were growing around their houses and in their 
rich provision-fields. The latter were regularly covered with their fleshy 
luscious dark-coloured swollen fruit-stalks: these have a very pleasant 
sour-sweet taste and are also utilised by the Indians for the manufacture 
of a pleasant cooling drink. The peculiar kidney-shaped stony pericarp 
* This form of apparatus is now practically obsolete, it having given way to the far 
simpler construction based on the principle of a lever. (Ed.) 
